September 22

I love Thursday nights! I get together with a group of friends to watch Project Runway together. It's such a FUN tradition. Not everyone can come every week but it is a blast to watch with each other instead of our husbands. L-R is Debra R., Darbie W., Wendy R (holding Darbie's baby), me, Sara R. and Chelsey J. Love these girls!

September 21

Makenna has a darling friend from school named Lily. The girls adore each other and talk about each other all the time. They exchanged phone numbers at school and call each other a few times a week. It is adorable! I do feel like I have a preteen on my hands though. She goes in her room and talks and giggles incessantly while they are talking! So funny!

September 20

I have a lot of things I could have done this morning while Addison was at school but Emery was asleep so I decided to take time to finish the kids' school scrapbooks from last year. It was a nice quiet morning complete with a diet Coke and watching a video series from some of my favorite bloggers. It was so nice to get caught up!

September 19

I have been wanting to learn how to make good cinnamon rolls for a long time. I found a yummy recipe online that we tried this afternoon. Apple cider cinnamon rolls were so so good. The kids had fun helping too. I learned a few things that I will do differently on my next attempt! Yum!

September 18

First football game of the season! Allen is the head coach for Carter's team this year. They're both having so much fun! Allen is forever coming up with plays to teach the boys and Carter loves having Allen as the coach!

September 17

Today we got our annual family pictures taken! I've been so excited for my friend Liz to take these pictures and have been putting together our outfits for the better part of 2 months. I am so thrilled to have our first picture of our entire family together! (Picture to come)

September 16

I honestly cannot believe how crazy busy we are this school. We have so much going on - preschool, dance for both older girls, scouts, Young Mens, Football and piano. I've been trying to find a good solution for our calendaring and this is working for now. I even had to color coordinate each of the kids' schedules to keep it all straight.

September 15

Today I was moving the chairs out to mop the kitchen and Addison brought her scooter in from the garage. It was so random but I let her ride around the kitchen for a few minutes before I mopped. She wanted to keep it in the house for the rest of the day but I finally snuck it out when she wasn't looking.

September 14

I wanted a cute banner for my fireplace that I could use in both September and November (I have a banner for October). With my new love of banners this one came together pretty quickly. Chelsea and I worked on it together and finished in an afternoon. I love it's simplicity and the colors and that I only used what I had on hand!

September 13

Tonight I asked the kids to set the table and instead of using a placemat, Addison used her blanket (named Spotty). It cracked me up. She is very attached to her blanket and was very upset when we made her use a real placemat instead!

September 12

More signs of the season! I planted fall mums today and love how pretty they are. Fall is my favorite and I love the bit of color it brings to my porch!

September 11

I cannot believe it has been 10 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center towers. We wanted to help the kids understand in an appropriate way what happened on that day since they have heard us talk about it so much. I found a 10 minute video on YouTube that gave a timeline of the day and used actual footage from it. We let the kids watch it tonight and answered their questions. It is so important that we never forget or let future generations not understand what an important and impactful event 9/11 was for our country.

September 10

This is the chore I dread the most every season - changing the closets over. Ugh. Such a huge hassle. It has been unseasonably chilly the last few days and I really needed to get an inventory on what the kids have and need for the fall/winter so it was time. It took me TWO full days to get it done this year. The girls even had to sleep in the bonus room because there was stuff all over their room. Good thing I did it though as Addison probably has 60 outfits for fall already (almost all hand-me-downs from Makenna and some of her cousins)

September 9

Addison seriously adores these busy bags I made for her. This is her favorite activity so far - sticking circle stickers on the pages to make letters. She will sit and do it for a long time and always until she runs out of worksheets. And dang, I love this picture. She is such a fun, spunky and darling little gal!

September 8

At long last Addison has started preschool. She has been waiting for this day since the big kids started school and asked every day if she was going to Miss Debra's house yet. She is beyond ready for preschool. Our setup this year is awesome. She is going to my friend who lives across the street. She is a great teacher and I can't beat the convenience!

September 7

7 months on September 7th! I know I say it every month but we just love this girl to pieces. She is truly the best and most easy going baby around. She is a great eater, great sleeper, great nurser and so happy. She laughs all the time and is just so pleasant! We are so blessed to have her in our family! It doesn't hurt that she is also so squishy, cute and cuddly!

September 6

Today Carter had his first project of the year due. He had to make a family tree that represented at least 4 generations. We had a good time with this project gathering extended family pictures and finding a way to display them. He also had to interview a family member and ask them certain questions about his/her life. He chose to interview my dad and learned some fun things about him. He presented his project today and did a great job! His teacher was most impressed that we had pictures of all 4+ generations!

September 5

It was fun to spend time with mom and dad this weekend. I took a picture of them together to use for a school project Carter is doing but I also just really wanted a current picture of them together. They are wonderful parents and grandparents and I'm so grateful for them in our lives!

September 4

A fun surprise from the weekend is that Jon and Nicole happened to be in AZ at the same time we were. They flew down to buy Morgan a new car and drive it home. We were only together for a few hours but had so much fun anyway. And look at that new cute car!

September 3

We happened to be in Taylor during the annual Sweet Corn Festival and decided to join in the festivities. We watched the parade where lots of candy was scored, had some yummy fair food, participated in the kids rodeo and played in the bounce house. We all had a great time!

September 2

We decided to take a quick trip to Show Low/ Taylor for the weekend for Uncle Norris and Aunt Fawnette's 50th wedding anniversary. The kids had a ball playing with Grandma Frost's dress ups and were laughing so hard wearing these wigs around everywhere!

September 1

Another reorganization project has been to get our food storage organized and accounted for to figure out how much more we need. I love having it out where I can see and use it more regularly. And how fun that Thrive uses such pretty labels on their packaging!

August 31

More organization/purging projects. We finally got some more storage for our garage. We were so organized in our AZ home and have not had the kind of storage we needed since we left. I was going crazy never being able to find anything I needed in the garage so we got serious about it this weekend. Allen installed this overhead storage bin and I can get all TWENTY boxes of my seasonal decor up there now. We're making good progress but have lots more to do!

August 30

At a scout BBQ last week someone slipped Emery a cheese puff and she was in HEAVEN. She ate about 50 that night. I found some "natural" puffs at Trader Joe's and she has loved them. My big kids are jealous because I save them just for her because it is hard to find things she can eat with no teeth!

August 29

I know I always have a few laundry pictures in my 365 book every year. It just takes up SO MANY hours of my time every week to manage the laundry situation around here. Most Mondays I spend the ENTIRE day washing, drying and folding. It's my least favorite chore but represents so much of my daily grind.

August 28

We have instituted a new allowance system for this school year. So far it is working out great and the kids are really motivated and independent because of it. It is just what we've all needed. The kids can earn $1 per weekday by completing certain tasks. They each have a "bank account" through us and we deposit their money at FHE each week. The kids are now in charge of buying bday presents for their friends and for their own spending money for our trips. They are being much more careful with what they ask for and buy with their money.

August 26

This week's RS lesson was on personal history. I am good about scrapbooking and blogging but have not been good about writing down things my kids say and do for their own personal records. I went out and bought journals for them today and hope that I can stay motivated to write in them at least once a week.

August 25

I've been putting together some toddler busy bags for Addison for the past couple weeks. I LOVE this idea and wish I had used it with my older kids. Each bag has an activity in it. I love that I can grab one or two bags and keep Addison busy while I am running errands, at appointments or nursing Emery. It is working great for my nursing time because Ems is at the "getting distracted by everything" phase. The bags keep Addison quiet. I also love all the fun homeschool/education blogs I have found while looking for bag ideas!

August 24

Since the kids have been back in school I've been cleaning, organizing and purging like crazy. It feels so great. Today I worked on my pantry and got it way more organized and I love it. I have these bins all throughout the pantry for different things - snacks, baking supplies, pasta, etc. Basically if I can get it in a bin, it is!